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As noted earlier this week,Randgold Resources CEO, Mark Bristow, has been on a tour of the company’s operations – all in West and Central Africa – ahead of the release of the company’s Q1 2018 results announcement in just under a week’s time. The latest visit was to its Loulo-Gounkoto complex in Mali, which in combination is currently the largest gold producer in Africa, although this position may soon be usurped by the Randgold-operated, and 45%-owned, Kibali gold mine in the DRC.

In an announcement Randgold confirmed that it continued to see Mali as having potential for further growth and is continuing to invest there – Loulo-Gounkoto is already the single biggest foreign investment in the country. The compzny says Q1 output will fall back from Q4 2017 levels due to scheduling production from lower grade areas – although we will have to wait for the quarterly announcement to find out by how much.

Randgold (LSE: RRS and NASDAQ: GOLD) has arguably been the No.1 global gold growth stock over the past several years, despite all its operations being in what the investment community sees as difficult investment environments. It has been particularly adept in continuing to grow its gold output while maintaining mostly good relationships with its host governments, which is presumably why the much larger Anglogold Ashanti, which also owns 45% of Kibali, ceded construction and operational management of the DRC’s largest gold mine to Randgold.

A lightly edited version of Randgold’s statement on its Malian operations is set out below:

Randgold’s Loulo-Gounkoto gold mining complex in Mali, already one of the largest of its kind in the world, is still expanding, with the Gounkoto super pit and the new Baboto satellite pit joining its Yalea and Gara underground mines.

Speaking at a site visit for local media, chief executive Mark Bristow said the complex’s all-Malian management team, which steered it to a record performance in 2017, had made a good start to this year, although production was expected to be lower than the previous quarter on the back of forecast lower grades, reflecting the sequencing of mining lower grade blocks at both Loulo and Gounkoto. Although slightly delayed, mining of the Baboto satellite pit was now well on track to support the complex with softer oxide ore feed.

“We expect grades to pick up and production to increase through the rest of the year to deliver our production guidance of 690,000 ounces for 2018,” said Tahirou Ballo, the GM of the complex. Mr Ballo noted that production from the underground mines continued to show a steady improvement since Loulo took over the mining from contractors in 2016.

Chiaka Berthe, the West African GM of operations, said the Loulo-Gounkoto complex represented the largest foreign investment to date in the Malian economy. After all these years it was still investing in new mining projects like the Gounkoto pushback and the new Baboto satellite pit he said. The country is rich in other gold opportunities, and Randgold continues to search for extensions to the known orebodies as well as new discoveries in its extensive Malian landholdings.

On its sustainable development policy in the areas around its mining operations, Randgold also continues to invest substantially in its host communities. Some 5,000 students are enrolled at 17 schools built by the company, and last year 52 of them were awarded bursaries for further study. Randgold is also advancing the development of commercially viable agribusiness enterprises, to mitigate the socio-economic impact of the complex’s eventual closure. The project already includes five incubation farms and an agricultural college with 70 students.